Rothwell 10k, one year on

A year ago I went to Rothwell to run the 10k and found it full of Ilkley Harriers, ran well to get a PB of 38:02 despite having to stop three times to tie my laces and generally started to believe that I'd made something of a breakthrough in my running.  That week I PB'd at the fist John Carr and Leeds Half too.

Today I had no real optimism as my legs were tired and I'm still leaking snot like an Icelandic volcano gushes ash, but it's a measure of where I am now that I was thinking I'd be happy "just" to break 38 minutes.

The Newmanator was along for his first ever 10k, so I took him for a bit of a warm up before lining up maybe 5 or 6 rows back.  The only other Harrier I spotted was Richard Reeve, who's in a rich vein of form, so when Richard moved up nearer the front I thought I'd let him go.

As it was I was slightly alarmed to see that I ran the first mile in 5:48, although looking at the gradient I think it was predominantly downhill.  Richard had vanished into the distance, so any thoughts of hauling him back in disappeared, so I just tried to settle in to run 6 minute mile pace and see how close to my 37:14 PB I could get.  The second mile was also sub-6, but by this time I knew I'd slowed a bit, and 3 and 4 were almost bang on the 6 min mark.  5k came in 18:16, which were I feeling stronger would suggest a 36:xx PB would be a goer, but I knew there was some uphill and, crucially, some upwind running to be done.

The 4th mile was an odd one - into the stiff breeze and slightly uphill, I slowed to 6:09 pace but I also noticed a big group containing Richard were slowly coming back to us.  I was running with a guy from Baildon who was flying one minute and sitting back the next, but I was definitely conscious of trying to preserve some energy whilst keeping the pace up enough to pull the group ahead back.

Into the 6th mile we were reversing the route from the start, and we held out pace at 6:05ish and by the time the watch bleeped for 6 miles the watch read 35:52 and Richard was only 20 yards ahead.  Not wanting to show my hand too soon I accelerated and passed him with maybe only 50 yards to go, hoping I'd timed it right so I maybe could get that elusive sub-37 after all.  In the end I missed out by a single second, clocking 37:01 and 46th place.  In retrospect if I "lost" the sub-37 anywhere it was in mile 5 where I sat back and allowed the Baildon guy to set the pace when he was taking a bit of a breather, as the last 0.2m were at 5:35 pace, which is pretty sprinty really.  Given that I wasn't expecting a lot on the back of a marathon and 300+m of hilly bike riding, plus not being physically A1, I'm pretty pleased with a 13 second PB and beating Richard, who had seemed to be in a different league recently.

The Newmanator did well to run 43:40 for his first ever 10k, and it'll be interesting to see how he does in his first 5k on Wednesday as he slowed dramatically in the second half.  Sadly I won't be able to run the John Carr as I have to be in London overnight, so my 5k PB may have to wait for a few weeks to receive some attention.